


Nineteen Elements

by Langstrand



Series: Pokémon for Profit [2]
Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon - All Media Types
Genre: Drama, F/M, Gen, Multi, One Shot Collection, Romance, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-07
Updated: 2016-07-07
Packaged: 2018-07-22 04:02:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,440
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7419010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Langstrand/pseuds/Langstrand
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set in the same universe as 'Pokémon for Profit,' Nineteen Elements is a collection of vignettes, each related in some thematic way to a particular type. These will range from a ghost story to a romance, and everything in between.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Timeline

**** Timeline ** **

1857   The first sanctioned Pokémon Gym is founded in the UK as a sport club for hobbyists.

1868   The Meiji Restoration. The Shogunate is disestablished and Japan enters the modern age.

1871   Lavaridge Town becomes the site of Japan’s first Pokémon Gym.

1877   The first World Championship is founded in the UK. Major Edward Spencer wins the title.

1881   The US World Championship is founded.

1888   The first regional Pokémon Leagues are established in the UK.

1891   The German World Championship is founded.

1896   Pokémon battling is featured at the Olympic Games for the first time.

1905   The Australian World Championship is founded.

1921   The Japanese Pokémon League is founded; the first regional competitions are established. 

1929   The Spanish Pokémon League introduces the first Elite Four to its regional leagues.

1937   **KEN FUSUBE** , the grandfather of Lance and Clair, becomes the first Japanese world champion in Australia.

1948   Elite Fours are established in the regions of Japan; **YUKINARI “OAK” OKIDO** defeats them to become the first Champion.

1980   Team Rocket is founded by **GIOVANNI TEDESCO** in Celadon City.

 **RED** is born.

1983   **GOLD** is born.

1994   **BILL** invents the Pokémon Storage System.

1997   Silph Co. invents the Master Ball.

1998   Giovanni disbands Team Rocket following defeat by Red; both vanish.

           The machinations of environmentalist terrorists Team Aqua and Team Magma are foiled.

2001   A resurgent Team Rocket under **MICHAEL ARCIERE** is defeated by Gold.

           Red re-emerges.

           The leaders of doomsday cult Team Galactic are arrested.

2003   Red wins his first World Championship title in the UK.

2010   In the United States, the cult Team Plasma causes disruption at the Unova Pokémon League.

2012   Team Plasma is disbanded by the International Police.

           An attempt to construct a nuclear device in France backfires, killing the villainous scientist **LYSANDRE**.

           Red wins his 17th World Championship.

           Oak dies.


	2. Fairy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Johto, 2001.

**** Morty** **

The air was thick with fog. Were he any further in front, Eusine’s fluttering white cloak would have disappeared into the pale broth. Morty could see what his friend was tracking: heavy footprints in the mud, four-toed and broad, with the hint of a claw at the end of each toe. “The footprints head right into the mountains!” shouted Eusine, his voice full of glee. “If this is what I think it is, we’re heading right to its nest.” His dirty blond hair was dishevelled, his cape was frayed, and his voice was breathless, but Eusine could hide none of his excitement.

“There better be ghosts in these mountains.” said Morty, hopefully, before wrapping himself tightly into his scarf to keep out the chill mountain air. Morty would follow his friend on his extravagant excursions whenever he asked, but, where Eusine looked for legendary Pokémon, Morty looked for ghosts.

“Yes, maybe,” he dismissed Morty with a wave of his hand, and pranced off into the mist. Morty had never known Eusine so happy. A week had passed since the boy with the yellow cap had clambered into the Burned Tower and found the three beasts that his friend had spent the best part of a decade looking for. It gave Morty some satisfaction to recall that as soon as they saw Eusine, the Pokémon burst out of the tower in a heartbeat.

The pair continued to climb up the foothills until noon, when the fog lifted. They clambered up onto a rocky promontory overlooking a steadily descending river valley. In the south they could discern the towers and spires of Ecruteak City, rising out of the haze. In all other directions, craggy mountains rose like jagged teeth, surrounding the tallest peak of all, the cavernous Mount Mortar. Eusine surveyed the landscape for any sign of the mythical beast they were seeking, but all was quiet and still.

Wraithlike, Morty crept up behind Eusine. He reached out his hand, and gently tapped his friend on the shoulder of his purple jacket. Startled, Eusine span around, only to find Morty already racing down the hillside. “Hey Eusine!” he shouted. “If you can’t catch Entei, you can’t catch me!” Morty swore he could see his friend’s face fume a red as bright as his bow tie before he made chase, stumbling down the rocks after him.

With the river to his left and the wind at his back, Morty ran as fast as he could, trying to channel the Entei that his friend believed he was tracking. At last, he slowed, the climb of the river checking his pace. Stopping for breath, Morty suddenly caught a flash of red in the corner of his eye. _No, it can’t be._ He heard the sound of footsteps too late, as Eusine clattered into his backside, sending them both tumbling to the floor.

“Eusine, Eusine, stop, shut up,” he whispered, pulling himself upright. “It’s here.” Their eyes darted around them, but they could see no sign of the beast. Eusine sighed, and stood up.

“There’s nothing here, you blackguard!” But as he said that, a huge red shape rose from behind a jagged rock. Its mane was white as snow, its eyes sharp and black, its fur a rich red. They were both almost convinced that it was an Entei, but they were quickly shaken from their awe when the Arcanine roared a wisp of fire from its mouth.

“Well, it’s no Entei,” grinned Morty, before reaching for his Pokéballs. Gengar was released in a flash of light, and began circling the hound at a distance, grinning almost as broadly as his master. The ghost aimed a cursory Shadow Ball in front of the animal, and the black blob sent it bounding back into the rocks. Morty was laughing. Eusine was fuming.

 

“Why bother chasing Entei anyway?” asked Morty. He had a tall bottle of beer in his hand, half drained already, and was reclining on a bench in one of Ecruteak’s less fashionable bars; Morty very rarely took Eusine to places in which he was likely to meet a girl. “Surely it isn’t even half the beast that Suicune is?” he continued, without a trace of sincerity.

“You’ve been well trained,” said Eusine. “But I thought that, if we could find Entei, then it would be able to lead us to the greater prize. The pursuit of the majestic Suicune is my life’s goal, and I explore all avenues that may lead me to it.” Eusine made no secret of his addiction to Suicune. Often, it would lead him on daring adventures, scrambling through caves, climbing tall mountains, braving all weathers and all terrains. Morty was only too happy to join him, but his presence was usually useful only in keeping Eusine from getting himself killed.

“You know, we’re hunting these rare Pokémon?” said Morty; Eusine nodded. “Well, Team Rocket also hunt rare Pokémon. So what makes us any better than them?” Eusine contorted his face in surprise at Morty’s uncharacteristic display of introspection.

“Wait just one minute!” Eusine feigned a gasp, cupping his hand to his mouth. “Aren’t you a servant to the Rocket Empire? I know they’ve got the Pokémon League in their pockets; their money and power has won them the hearts of most of the gym leaders. I’m told Koga is particularly indebted to them.”

Morty grimaced. “You’re half right. There are certainly a few higher-ups who are in the Rockets’ pockets, but I’m not one of them. It’s more of a Kanto thing, you know? As for Koga, everyone knows that he’s a Rocket stooge, but no one has ever been able to tell me what his relationship with them _actually_ is.”

“If you can stomach being part of a corrupt organisation, then I’m sure you can cope with searching for magnificent legendary Pokémon with your beloved Eusine. Rockets be damned!” He sipped generously from his glass of wine, as if steeling himself for his next speech. “Unlike the Rockets, _I_ search for Suicune not for profit, but to fulfil my labour of the heart.” And at that, he took a deep breath, and stumbled into his customary sigh-laden soliloquy about the majestic Suicune. Morty had learned to stop listening, and instead of hanging on to every word about the sheen of the beast’s fur, and its soothing howl, and piercing blue eyes like oceans set in glass orbs, Morty allowed his mind to wander.

He caught very little of what his friend said. Instead, he danced through memories of his ghosts and of his gym. It was Eusine’s talk of beauty and majesty and true love that brought one thing lurching back into his mind, as if his thoughts were trapped in some forest without a map, running in circles looking for escape, but finding only the place from which they’d come. _There were no ghosts in the mountains, but there are in here,_ he thought. “…its beauty is _without compare,_ ” finished Eusine, his eyes shimmering with tears. “What do you think, Mort?”

Without thinking, he replied, “Oh yes, she is beautiful…”

“She?” Eusine feigned a gasp. “My dear Morty, either you’ve just misgendered Suicune – who is of course beyond these restrictive labels - or your mind has strayed onto some _one_ else. I’ve certainly trained you well enough for it to be the former.” He leaned back in his chair, spread his arms out, and put his feet up on the edge of the table, as if settling in for a story. “So, tell me everything! Does Team Rocket steal rare girls as well? I don’t want you feeling doubly guilty.” Morty said nothing. _If I wait long enough, he’ll get bored of the silence and start talking. He loves his own voice too much not to._

The next minute dragged. Eusine stared at Morty from across the table, piercing blue eyes upon him like searching, probing knives, pricking him until he relented. He relented. “Oh, alright, alright, fine!” he slapped his head upon the table, and whimpered melodramatically. “Yes, there is a girl. If you think I’m going to tell you who she is or even what she looks like, you’re mistaken. _She_ doesn’t know herself, not that it’d make any difference.”

Eusine frowned. “My dear old Mort, you keep it to yourself, by all means. But tell me this: why are you sitting here daydreaming about her? I’ve never stopped searching for Suicune, no matter how difficult it’s been. You shouldn’t surrender your dreams to defeatism. If there’s someone you’ve been pining about year after year like a dead parrot, knowing full well that she’s been pining just as much, you should stop faffing around and go out there and find her!” The glimmer in Eusine’s eyes told Morty that he knew exactly the girl he was talking about.

For most of his adult life, Morty had pounced from girl to girl, lurking in bars and clubs in search of a night of satisfaction. But a day spent with Eusine reminded him of the long game, the lifelong pursuit of that perfect goal. For his extravagant friend it was Suicune, a beautiful, unattainable mystery, born out of fire and ash, and racing across earth and wave to escape its irritating stalker. He failed in his chase at every corner, but he never relented. For every wound, the pursuit was the cure. For every wrong turn and red herring, the prize was his motivation. Morty realised at once that he’d never failed his quest; he’d only forgotten what he was searching for. His stomach churned. His heart bellowed in his chest. A new resolution stirred within him. He stood up, suddenly. “I have to go.”

“Why? The night is young – stay!” cried Eusine.

“I have to find my Suicune,” he winked at his friend, tossed some coins onto the table, and burst out into the night. Eusine could only smile.

 

**** Jasmine ** **

The rain lashed down upon the grey streets of Olivine. Black waves beat salt and spray across the beach, whipped up by the winds. Jasmine clutched the hem of her dress that clung ever more tightly to her as she ran soaking down the pebbled streets to save it from dragging through the puddles that swelled under her feet. Her long brown hair was slick with sweat and rain.

After what felt like an age of running, she reached the door of her apartment. Her hands shook with the chill as she fumbled the key into the lock. Relief bathed her as she felt the door close behind her. _At last_ , she thought to herself.

The apartment was warm, and the dim light cast a golden sunshine glow over everything. She immediately made her way to the balcony window, so she could watch Amphy’s lighthouse sweep over the city and then out to sea, a broad beam of light illuminating the spires and domes of the Old Town, the markets, the port, all in sharp detail in spite of the heaving rain. It relaxed her to see it.

Jasmine dragged her sopping dress off, then, wearing only her underwear fluttered down onto the bed, exhausted. She allowed her slender figure to melt into the duvet, and began smiling contentedly. For once, she had left her cares outside in the rain.

She did have plenty of them: if not for the help of the trainer Gold, her beloved Amphy would be lying shivering in his bed, with nothing to stop the ships from foundering in the strait; Team Rocket was at large in Johto again, and she was terrified that they’d turn their attention to organising the petty crime in Olivine’s docks; and, traffic to her gym had dried to a trickle. She felt that the comfortable, trouble-free year she’d had was leaving her with a backlog of bad luck, which had decided to burst upon her all at once.

For a few moments, Jasmine allowed herself some peace. After a time she drifted off into sleep. Immediately, a dream overtook her. It was a well-remembered dream of Olivine past, when she was a virginal gym leader, untested and nervous. She had called upon Morty – already Ecruteak’s gym leader - and Whitney to help her set up shop, and her mind brought her back to the endless hours spent hiring gym trainers, filling out tax forms, and finding contacts amongst Olivine society. The dream inevitably brought her to the beach, sitting with her two friends watching the sun cast its dying rays over the sparkling water. She would be smiling, but as soon as she would turn to Morty, the messy haired boy would vanish, and her smile would fade with him.

Jasmine was roused from her sleep by a curious, haunted feeling that she was being watched. She peeled open her eyelids, and pulled herself up on her elbows. It took her some time to register what she saw: a man was standing in front of her, wrapped in a purple scarf, holding a tray of tea, his wide-eyed expression of surprise slowly transforming into a Gengar grin. “I made you some tea,” he said.

“M-m-m-Morty!” Jasmine exclaimed. Her face turned tomato-red; she whipped her duvet round to cover her naked body, burying her face into the folds of fabric. “How d-d-d-did you get in here?” Her voice quivered with embarrassment, and she let out a muffled moan of distress into the sheets.

“Sometimes, you have to lock the door,” Morty announced. “I did call you, though - I’m not callous. Five or six times, in fact.”

“W-why are you here?” she said, poking her head out from under her sheets. Morty was still grinning like a little boy on his birthday. She tried to make her voice sound angrier this time, though it still rattled nervously.

“Not to see you naked. Put something on, before you die of embarrassment.” His voice suddenly became grave, and a shadow passed over him. “We need to talk.”

 

The weather outside had calmed by the time Jasmine emerged from her bedroom. Inside, however, dark clouds loomed. Jasmine was shivering with nerves as she walked towards the living room. Her mind span with possibilities: different, frightening scenarios that could have brought Morty to her. She found him sprawled across the sofa, illuminated by the glow of the TV. He was tapping his fingers nervously against the side of the chair, and Jasmine could tell that his attention was not on the Pokémon battles being played out on the screen.

Jasmine stood hidden by the door for a moment, staring at him. The man who she was prepared to berate for breaking into her house looked vulnerable. She could see his nervous tapping, his eyes full of melancholy, and what looked to be a slight tremble on his bottom lip. This was a man whom Jasmine had never seen so emotional; she thought she’d never see him like this again, except when he thought no one else was looking. To see him stripped of his arrogance and his bravado made her instantly forgive him.

_Now I know_ , she thought. It came to her at once that the Morty who disappeared in her dream had reappeared in her apartment. The man nervously waiting for her was the Morty she’d never been able to reach, the one who’d always melted into the sand and sea as soon as she caught a glimpse of him. Cautiously, she crept in the room, and shivered onto the other end of the sofa. She considered Morty for a moment, expecting him to replace his smug mask. Instead, he just stared longingly into her eyes, like a man possessed by the sight of a precious stone. Jasmine stared back, but quickly averted her gaze, withdrawing into her shell like a nervous child.

“Morty… speak to me.” Being the first to break the silence, Jasmine felt as if, for the first time in their lives, the tables had been turned: now it was Morty who was stricken into silence, unable to speak his mind.

“I was with Eusine this morning. We were traipsing through the mountains east of Ecruteak, him dressed like a tacky magician, on the tail of what he thought was an Entei. It wasn’t – it never is – but Eusine’s enthusiasm never dims in spite of failure after failure. His singular goal in life is to find these so-called legendary beasts, and he never lets up, because he is so passionate about finding them. Suicune, he loves most of all, but he takes so much pleasure in the pursuit of it that he almost wishes – and he’ll never agree with me on this – that he’d never catch it.

“Eusine’s asked me more than once whether I have my own Suicune. I never really knew what he meant by that, but now I’ve really thought about it, I’ve realised there’s only one thing that I would spend years trekking across the country in search of. And unlike Eusine, I’ve never spent hour upon hour telling everyone and anyone about it, because, in truth, I haven’t admitted to myself that I’ve even been looking for it.

“Then I realised something else. Eusine’s Suicune is always running from him. When I last found my Suicune, I ran from it. So now I’ve come back for her.” Morty took a deep breath. He was shaking like a tree in a hurricane. “That summer we spent together in Olivine was the happiest I’d ever been. Ever since then I’ve been lying to myself, but I’m telling the truth now. Jasmine, I’m in love you.”

Jasmine was still shivering, like she was out in the rain all over again. She tried to open her mouth to speak, but the words fell short, and she was left agape like a Magikarp. She was ready to tell him about the month in Olivine, about all the time they spent together, about how much it meant to her, about how it made her happy and sad all at once when she thought about it. She wanted to tell him how she knew exactly how he was feeling every time he looked into her eyes. She wanted to tell him that he was right. Most of all, she wanted to apologise, because she knew all along and was too frightened to tell him.

“I think… I think you loved me since the d-d-day you met me,” she replied. “B-b-because, um… I know I have.”

Their first kiss was too short for Jasmine: Morty delicately, deliberately pulled her towards him, and let their lips briefly graze each other in a soft embrace. As they parted, Jasmine could feel Morty’s Gengar grin spread across his face. “I spent the whole journey here planning that speech,” he said, quietly. “It was worth it just for that.”

 


End file.
